Leaving
by rese
Summary: How do you continue your life when the most important thing to you is gone? You don’t. oneshot ms warning: character death


Leaving

rese

Pairing/s: Mulan/Shang

Rating: T

Summary: How do you continue your life when the most important thing to you is gone? You don't.

Disclaimer: Mulan and co. belong to the almighty and powerful Disney Company, who has the comfortable capacity to be able to smite me if I say otherwise. I don't profit from this nonsense, if I did I wouldn't be going to period 0's that's for sure.

A/N: I gave Grandma Fa a first name – Ni - for this story.

She held him to her chest, her arms so tight around him, as she sobbed in agony. She couldn't lose him, not now, not ever. His body remained limp and she struggled to keep her presence of mind in the situation. Impossible. Her tears had begun to soak his black hair and her face scrunched hard against the wail that was sure to come. _Come back _she pleaded inside. _Please!_ But hands were clasping her shoulders pulling her away, reaching for her against her will. _No! I can't leave him, he would never leave me_. "He's gone, Mulan. There's nothing we can do. There's nothing you can do." _He's already left._

The winter wind hit her face and the tear streaks froze from its touch. The hollow pain was inescapable. Breathing was almost hopeless. Shaking was incessantly uncontrollable. She hated every moment of it and craved for it all at once. It was in a way her penance, her punishment for letting him die. Letting him just leave her. Up and go.

A whole month had passed. A whole month she survived. A whole month she had considered joining him. A whole month she'd wished she'd just die. How do you continue your life when the most important thing to you is gone? You don't. You don't want to and know you're not supposed to. It's too hard and it hurts too much. It just isn't worth it.

Mulan turned her face away from the wind and began the decent down the mountain. Solitude was becoming harder to find as her friends and family had decided to keep a close watch on her a week after his death. She had tried to kill herself the night of his funeral day but her grandmother found her before she could pierce herself deep enough. She would never have considered suicide if Shang had been alive, but then again, if he were it wouldn't even be an issue. Her parents had tried to convince her that Shang would've thought her actions dishonourable – an act of cowardice. She couldn't stand up to life anymore.

She kept her head down and stared at the ground she slowly passed over. Almost gliding, like a ghost. In a way she was – she was only a shadow of her former self. Her relatives thought it too she knew, the thin rice paper walls in her home were even thinner in painful moments. Passing comments in the village were like the wind, teasing her and whispering of her dead husband. Mulan wished she'd just trip on one of the rocks beneath her feet and tumble swiftly off the side of the mountain. They didn't even have a year together. _Please_ she willed her feet, _Shang can catch me_.

A voice interrupted her thoughts and she saw the person it belonged to rushing their way up to her. _I can't go anywhere_, she thought bitterly _so why the urgent pretense?_ It was Ling and he was trying hard not to trip over his wiry legs as he ran up the path. The scene would've been almost comical if Mulan hadn't been considering her death a few moments ago.

"Mulan!" he called out to her, his voice in its usual panicky state but broken by his panting. "Mulan! Why didn't you say where you were going? Yao had to beat it out of that squirt Zhing Mao, Chien Po tried explaining, but you know how it is." Ling tried to joke but it fell flat when he saw her raw eyes and pale figure. "Uh," he began, feeling foolish to try and make her smile, "I'm sorry Mulan but I- well your grandmother, she told me to tell you that tea's ready. Or whatever that means." Mulan nodded understanding her grandmother's code. "I know Ling." Mulan croaked. It was the first time she had spoken to him in a week and he looked elated at her simple words. He grinned at her, and then realized it was the last thing she wanted to see. So instead he held her elbow and guided her down the rest of the way.

* * *

Fa Ni sat in the garden watching the sky. Grey clouds were passing over now and she sighed at this sign. Mulan was not getting any better. Li had asked for a doctor to see her daughter, this case was beyond her motherly cares but Ni understood better than her children the cause of Mulan's constant agony. The wind began to pick up and it spoke of the harsh winter that was sure to follow its wake. Winds as these came of the mountain snow storms and they bore ill news for the villagers.

The gate snapped open, as loud as its iron weight. A small figure appeared beside a tall, thin man who paused momentarily as his feet caught in the small one's dress. The grimace of the figure and hurried apology of the man identified them as Mulan and Ling to Ni as she watched them with unfocused eyes. Ling stumbled a bit over Mulan and he was ushered back through the gate they entered, as swiftly as the wind turned he had left the farm.

Ni folded her hands patiently, Mulan would come to her instinctively she was sure of it.

Shuffled steps, four paces Ni counted, but then a faster gait in the opposite direction surprised her calm state. Ni looked to where she had guessed Mulan had been. She had run to her rooms. Ni sighed heavily at this unpredictable behaviour from her granddaughter. These emotions were too deep to cause offence to her old heart but she worried. Mulan was not getting any better.

* * *

Heavy wet tears fell without regard. Her face was so wet and her knees wetter. Mulan's shoulders shook; every sob wracked her entire body with its sheer force. Her tears wouldn't fall fast enough. Her body couldn't crumble small enough. No one was coming for her.

She remained in this state for an hour till she reduced her body to constant shaking, eyes too raw to do anything but glumly stare at the darkness before her. Mulan's hands were numb, frozen cold as they clutched her knees to her chest, nails trying to pierce her skin like a comb in a concubine's hair. She rocked back and forth, she could only comfort herself. _Shang was dead_.

Mulan would not sleep. Her body ached for the release rest would bring but her scattered mind could hardly warn off the ghosts in her past for sleep. If she did sleep she was drugged, clasping to the thought she might not wake again. _Shang was dead_.

She heaved into the pail at times when her grandmother's medicine was too strong for her weakened state. She heaved for release. She heaved for the burn. She heaved for the hollowness that was left behind. Because _Shang was dead_.

Her physical torture continued day in, day out. Her parents continued to administer their care and respect for her mourning and yet the length and ferocity of her grief began to strain their love. Fa Ni watched their struggle to remain the tender family; she looked for her granddaughter's hope as her spirit waned. Mulan had passed into the next life, but left her body behind in a sort of eternal unrest. Ni could not find the girl she had loved so dearly, the hero of China.

* * *

Mulan left the house for little occasion, but when she did the village brought a blanket of shame over her form. "Her mind left with her husband," one would whisper to another. "Poor creature thinks she's lost her soul" another might say loudly. "You'll be fine. You'll get over it surely," this was always given directly and always hurt the most. She wished she was dead! There was no "getting over". There would never be any peace in this world for Li Mulan.

"Want some loquats miss?" a small man asked her, bending over his stall to display the southern fruits. _Those were Shang's favourite_, Mulan clutched her stomach feeling nauseous. Just as quickly she let go, her hands flying from her body as if burned. She had determined to never touch that part of her body. It was barren, she had received no memories of him and Mulan was sure it was her own fault. Sometimes she thought how she might live if he had left her with child. That was just it, she would live. But they had lain together many times before and still she had not borne one. Now she could never.

Mulan began to fall to the ground overwhelmed by her emotions. Fa Li saw her daughter drop across the street and ran to help her. Dodging a cart and two pompous ladies she threw herself beside Mulan, fraught with the idea that she might add to the villagers' stories. "Mulan, not here! Get up! Oh please Mulan, get up!" she whispered hurriedly tugging Mulan's shoulder in an effort to help the girl onto her feet. Mulan was sobbing, tears appearing in her eyes only to escape. "Ma!" she cried, but struggled to move up and off the road.

* * *

The storm Grandma Fa had predicted came and in full force this year. Howling wind, blinding lightning and deafening thunder ensured the clichéd roar of winter and Mulan felt her heart stir. _Tonight_. She reached for the liquor, hidden between the wall and her cot, stolen from her parents' storehouse.

Mulan left the house, burning her throat as she gulped the contents of the bottle with the thirst of a large courtier. She trudged her way past the gate and up the road heading for the mountain. It was cold and pouring with rain but the comforting heat from the wine coupled with dangerous thoughts pushed her on – she only had to make it to the top.

Unable to stumble in a straight line Mulan had almost stepped off the edge before she had reached the peak. A few more shuffles and Mulan had made it. She stood by the edge and stared into the unending oblivion of fog, perceiving her death. _He had been tempted to kill me on a night like this_ Mulan's amused mind morbidly linked the mountain to the Tung Shao Pass and the scene that followed her reveal.

She looked down at her white tunic, soaked through to the skin. She was oddly compelled to pour the now diluted wine over it, if only to indulge her blood fantasy the wine itself allowed to pass through her mind. _I'm wet enough_ she reminded herself in an act of strange self-preservation and hurled the bottle into the abyss determined to follow soon enough.

Mulan hugged herself, goosebumps prompting her attention back to her shivering body. _How did I get here?_ She wondered, at once about her drugged movement onto the mountain and how her life had spiraled downwards since Shang's death. She shrugged her shoulders as if someone else had asked the question. It didn't matter now. Nothing did and after her next step nothing ever would. Their would be no forced smiles, worried stares or never-ending pain where she was going. No anything. But _Shang_.

End.


End file.
